Dreams come true: perfect places to stay

Seaside: Florida, USA

The settlements of Seaside, Montegridolfo, Castelnau des
Fieumarcon and Portmeirion may be separated by time and geography,
but, as Harriet O'Brien discovers, they are linked by an ideal:
their creators' or renovators' desire to realise their vision of
the perfect place to stay...

The pastel-coloured cottages have porches and white picket
fences; the tiny town centre has chic boutiques and art galleries,
along with a Schwinn bike-rental outfit; the neat streets lead to a
pristine, half-mile-long, white-sand beach backed by nine
distinctively designed wooden pavilions. Seaside is a perfect patch
of urban America set on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. You
literally walk into a film set here: the town provided the backdrop
to Peter Weir's 1998 movie The Truman Show, which stars
Jim Carrey as a man who lives, unbeknownst to himself, in a reality
TV show for which a utopian suburbia has been specially created. In
reality, Seaside was conceived as a model town. It was
devised in the 1980s by developer Robert Davis on land he had
inherited from his grandfather. His concept was to create an ideal
resort community based on the old-time charm and values of his
grandfather's day. The result is an architectural confection,
which, for all its cute looks, has been seriously inspirational,
revolutionising town planning in the USA and effectively starting
the New Urbanism design movement. It is both a small town in its
own right - with a school, open-air market area, post office,
theatre and Interfaith Chapel (added in 2001) - and a holiday
destination with about 400 properties to rent. Families return year
after year, to shop at gourmet deli Modica Market, to enjoy
open-air concerts on the green and to gaze at spectacular sunsets
from the deck of Bud & Alley's Restaurant.